A Model and Measure of US Parents' Perceptions of Young Children's Parasocial Relationships

Abstract

Children's parasocial relationships have been understudied, even though recent research suggests that children learn better from socially meaningful than from socially irrelevant media characters. This study articulates a model of parasocial relationship development among children and, in the process, establishes new measures of children's parasocial interactions and parasocial relationships. Parents of children ( ≤  8 years old) completed an online questionnaire about their child's favorite media character. The measure of parental perceptions of children's parasocial relationships was composed of three dimensions: character personification, social realism, and attachment. The measure was then utilized as the endogenous variable in a model predicting parental perceptions of children's parasocial relationships. The model revealed that engagement with toy replicas of media characters, repeated media exposure, parent encouragement, and parasocial interactions were significantly related to parental perceptions of young children's parasocial relationships. The possible influence of parasocial relationships on children's potential to learn from media characters is discussed.

Keywords::

• parasocial relationship
• parasocial interaction
• structural equation modeling
• parent engagement
• toy play
• parent survey

Acknowledgements

This work was supported, in part, by the National Science Foundation under grant numbers 0126014 and 1252113. We are grateful for their financial support. We also thank the parents who participated in this research.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bradley J. Bond

Bradley J. Bond, Ph.D. (author to whom correspondence should be addressed) is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of San Diego. He studies media effects on child and adolescent health and identity development. E-mail: [email protected]

Sandra L. Calvert

Sandra L. Calvert, Ph.D. is a professor of Psychology at Georgetown University and the Director of the Children's Digital Media Center, a multi-site center funded primarily by the National Science Foundation. Her current research focuses on media, early development, and children's health. She is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the International Communication Association. E-mail: [email protected]